Most hikers brag about how far up they’ve gone, but what about treks going down into the earth? For what has to be one of the world’s ultimate hikes, try heading to the Grand Canyon, where you can descend one mile down past eons worth of rock layers, as is described in this NY Times piece.

But it’s winter now, you have to wait until at least spring to go, right? Actually . . .

“And the first thing I learned is that for the Grand Canyon, winter is the time to go. As the chief district ranger John Evans told me, ‘You’ll more or less have the place to yourself.’ Although the canyon is a desert, it’s a kind of oasis in winter — a place of peace, sequestered from the rest of the world. In three days of hiking I saw only two or three mule trains, each carrying baggage not riders, and maybe two dozen hikers in all.”